I am full-time father of two little boys. I teach in Temple University's Intellectual Heritage Department. I write regularly for Forbes, Mindshift KQED, HuffPo, and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop. I speak internationally about edTech, game based learning, and 21st Century parenting. My work looks at technology and popular culture from the perspectives of Jungian & Archetypal psychology and phenomenology & Heideggerian philosophy. In particular, I study the ways video games (and other new forms of interactive storytelling) teach us to make sense of the world. My most recent book is: "FREEPLAY: A Video Game Guide to Maximum Euphoric Bliss." Email: jordosh@jordo.tv

Replay, Restart, and Try Again: Video Game Wisdom For The New Year

It is New Year’s resolution time. Time to re-evaluate and restart for the coming year. Video games can be your guide.

Video games are like scripture for a new generation: part entertainment, part interactive experience, part persuasive storytelling. They are complex simulations that employ what author Ian Bogost calls “procedural rhetoric.” In the act of solving a game’s problems, the player engages and internalizes particular ways of experiencing the world. In a world of interactive storytelling, video games function like a fairy tales. And in every fairy tale there’s an implicit message, a moral, a lesson.

There’s a lot wisdom from the game world that you can apply to life world, particularly on the cusp of a new year. Here are three lessons for 2014.

Lesson One: Know When it’s time to Surrender to the Onslaught of Two-Bit Aliens

When is it time to click Restart?

Welcome to one of the game world’s more puzzling dilemmas. On the one hand, things seem hopeless. On the other, you feel like a comeback is possible. With a perfect combination of moves, or a fortuitous appearance of just the right power-up, an awe-inspiring turnaround is still possible. Is anything quite as exciting as the resurrection of the underdog, the upswing from a place of disadvantage, the reemergence of the downtrodden hero?

Really? Be realistic. What are the chances? Do you really think you can beat the odds?

The geometric blocks are falling like an automated puzzle on steroids: drop, crash, bounce. You will never be able to arrange them so that they fit into the right spaces.

The chirping spider aliens slide from one side of the screen to the other. They sneak up ominously.

The zombies outnumber and overpower you.

Face it: You are beat. The end is imminent.

How long will you scramble against the odds? The weight keeps bearing down on you. And you keep doing the same thing. You set up a strategy to protect your tower and it’s not working. Your defense tactics are failing.

Are you ready to accept it? Are you ready to give in?

Admit it! Sometimes you lose. It’s okay. A game lost is a lesson learned.

You don’t need to wait. There’s no reason to see it through to the destructive conclusion. You don’t gain anything by watching the words “GAME OVER” hurl toward you.

Do you really need to hear the descending scale of loser music?

Or can you cut your losses, press Restart and jump back into the game? (This time benefiting from the wisdom of experience.)

Be realistic about where you are in the game. Anticipate the endings so that you control when they come. Remember that hitting Restart is not the same as giving up. When you finish mindfully, the conclusion becomes the fledgling edge of a fresh go-around. You see death’s relationship to rebirth. You’re not afraid to plow over your virtual crops. The compost becomes fertile soil from which new seedlings can sprout.

It sounds simple. But it is easy to forget that when you turn over the dirt, you’re not just burying your baggage. The last game is still there, feeding the new one. Nothing goes away. Both the good and the bad remain.

You can lose blindly, a slave to your own weaknesses—or you can know when you’ve already lost and try again while you still have vitality, enthusiasm, and energy.

Lesson Two: Losing is Winning

We all stink the first time through. You can lose three lives before you even learn how to play the game. You keep losing and restarting, losing and restarting.

Each time you learn a little more, you go a little further. Each play takes you a little deeper into the game’s story. With each loss, “Game over!” pops up later than it did before.

But soon, you cross over to the other side of struggle. You start winning. Before you know it, the game becomes 1-up, 2-up, 3-up. How did it happen? And why did it take so long?

Because there are skills we all need to learn. You cannot just transfer the techniques you used with one cartridge onto the next. The physics of every challenge are unique. The controls work differently each time around.

Imagine you have your game pad in your hand. You are confident. You just conquered fourteen levels in six worlds each. You feel like a hero. But new games have fresh rules. Each time you start running and jumping anew, you are guaranteed to plummet a few times to your virtual death.

Don’t be discouraged.

After all, first you need to learn which blocks to pound into pieces with your polka-dot cranium. When should you hop? When should you jump? When should you duck? And which tunnels take you to a profusion of gold coins?

You will learn through trial and error. Not trial and success. You get better by losing.

The old cliché might be wrong: Practice doesn’t make perfect. But practice does make you more practiced. To be “practiced” means that you’ve failed so often that you’ve become a wizard at making mistakes.

In other words, practice makes you a bigger loser. You practice failing. You become so familiar with foibles that you start to be able to envision them before they happen . . . and make different decisions, preventative choices.

See, the foremost washout wields the joystick with the superior skill.

Does this mean that losing eventually makes you a winner?

Am I saying that perfection simply means that you’ve buffed out all your blemishes? Not really. Because winning and losing are not as distinctly separate as we’ve been led to believe. In fact, winning and losing belong together. You can’t have one without its opponent.

The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates said, “Things that are in opposition to each other are friends to the highest degree.”

Who can argue with this? In the modern world, we take it for granted when talking about romance. Think: “Opposites attract.” On some level, you and your competition are one and the same.

Lesson Three: The Game You Play is the Game That Plays You Back

It’s not just about how you greet the pixelated landscape, but also about the way the digital entities within the game greet you.

Nothing exists in a vacuum. Everything exists in relation to something else (actually, to many other things). You relate to the game. The game relates back. It always goes two ways.

In fact, the way you relate to the game is the way it relates back.

When you play a fighting game, or a war game, or any aggressive game, the game opposes you in the same spirit.

That’s why you need to pick your game carefully. You need to make sure you enter into your adventure with the attitude you want returned. If you choose to shoot, you also choose to be a target. If you try to get the bad guy, the bad guy will also try to get you.

It is normal to try and shift your perspective, to look to the bright side, to be more optimistic, and to try alter the mood from which you’re approaching. But it is easy to forget that in doing so, you can also choose how you want the game to play you.

Different games are for different times.

There are puzzle games for when you want to be confounded.

There are hunting games for when you want to be hunted.

There are strategy games that will try to outsmart you.

Pick the game that fits your mood.

Otherwise, you’re competing in a way that is out of joint with your immediate constitution. This causes stress and anxiety. Challenges become something to avoid instead of something to approach. You and your antagonist get further polarized instead of closer together.

When the distance between you and your target increases, you are pushing parts of yourself further away. Even hand-to-hand combat becomes like trying to escape your own shadow. The harder you fight, the stronger your enemies become.

Don’t be afraid to face your own shortcomings and remember that in both the game world and the life world, the game you play is the the game that plays you back. Losing is winning. And sometimes you need to surrender to the onslaught of two-bit aliens.

This post features abridged versions of chapters from Jordan Shapiro’s book FREEPLAY: A Video Game Guide To Maximum Euphoric Bliss. AVAILABLE HERE.

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